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This
site was built to contribute something to the extreme lack of
information about one-off, home-built cars on the Web. If this site
helps you with your project, or sparks interest in building your own
car, great!

It
can't be stressed too much how important it is to have an
understanding spouse. If it weren't for my dear wife's support none of
this would have happened. And thanks to my parents for passing on the
"builder gene" to all their kids. And finally a huge thanks
to everyone at work who've offered knowledge and advice: Alan, Armen,
Cecil, Joe, Lee, Ray, Ron, and Sumant. Many of "my" ideas
came from them - thanks a million guys. So on with the story...

The
Dream:I've always liked the passion and
nostalgia of the early aviators who flew from town to town, landing
in fields at night and sleeping under the wing of their planes, and
the amateur auto racers in Europe who drove their cars to events,
raced, then drove home. Those days are gone, and Lord knows there has
been no passion in automobiles since the early 70's, yet I still
dreamed of recreating a little bit of that passion. To build a
sports car and drive it to the time trials at Laguna Seca Raceway,
near San Francisco. During race weekend, I’d sleep in the
campground and run the car during the day, and maybe even wear one of
those British hats to boot!

Since
I
always liked small quick sports cars I started looking at kits to see
what was available. But first I had to answer the question, "What
is the ultimate sports car?" What do I *really* want? I felt
then, as now, that there is no more elemental sports car than a Lotus
Super 7. There were many kits but I eventually decided on the Rotus.
Well... great car, not so great company (out of business now.) In
fact, it seems like kit car companies go out of business all the
time. There was an ad for a new company that I immediately called,
and their phone was already disconnected. Worse, in an apparent
effort to recreate a classic sports car, some manufacturers
accurately design in the same lousy suspension the originals had.
Why? No one thinks the kit car *is* the original, so why copy all
it's bad points? And how about getting a kit car through emissions
testing. Anyway, I had pretty much given up on ever building a kit
car, or any car for that matter. (My real dream was to make my own
car from scratch, but it seemed like such an overwhelming project,
not something that I could do myself. The main sticking point was
dealing with making a mold and not wanting to deal with composites.)

But
the
dream of building a car, better yet, building it from scratch,
never went away. Yes it seemed so overwhelming, so
intimidating, and so expensive. Could I do it? I didn’t
know how… where would I start…, I didn’t have a
big garage, and I was sure it must be expensive. There
were lots of reasons not to do it. But a dream can be
persistent, and it never went away completely…

In
1995 I started a new job as a HW/SW engineer at an aerospace
firm.
There I met coworkers who were really car crazy. Some
came from the ex-factory Nissan GTP race team, others were designing
their own cars, one building a V8-powered motorcycle, another a sport
bike-powered 3-wheeler, and yet another designing a car/airplane you
drive to the airport, push a button, the wings pop out, and you take
off! But I digress… So one day I was talking to a
coworker about sports cars and mentioned that the only kit car I
liked was the Rotus. He looked at me oddly and said, "I designed
that car." What?! Talking further, he said he was taking a mold
off an old Mk I Mini (and adding HUGE fender flares) as part of
designing his own ultimate autocross terror.

And
there it was right in front of me... a solution to all my issues I
had against building a car. Slowly things started taking shape, and I
realized that meeting these guys could be very expensive, and
educational. As I starting thinking about the whole project
seriously, I realized that while I really liked the Super 7, and I
still do, I felt it would look downright ugly with a complete roll
cage. I still wanted something very light, small and quick, and while
the Mini wasn't my first choice, it worked out that it was actually
better. The decision was made, a Mini with a big engine it would be.
(The actual engine selection is detailed in the Design link, but if
you must know now, it's a Honda Prelude VTEC 4-cylinder.)

So,
where to start? Click on one of the links below (same as at the top.)